bloodbath butterflies
by reminiscent-afterthought
Summary: Yuujin gets a text one morning: beware the red butterflies. He doesn't understand it doesn't matter, because he has Haru.
1. 1

**A/N:** Written for

Crossover Bingo, #96 – Pupa  
Mega Prompts Challenge, dialogue #27 - "If you know what you're doing."  
Digimon Dawn/Dusk Remake Challenge, Thriller Ruins task

* * *

 **bloodbath butterflies**  
1

"Beware the red butterflies" is the text from the unknown number that wakes him before his alarm on a Sunday.

 _Must be spam,_ he thinks, and deletes it. He mentions it in passing to Haru anyway, because it's the type of whimsical thing Haru might be interested in. And he is. He forgets his own annoyance at being woken early by Yuujin at his door and launches into whatever tales of butterflies he can pull from his memories.

They're in no particular order, but Yuujin's a soccer player so he's good at reading tangents and Haru's always been a breath of air in his world.

They walk together, side by side and looking at each other and the white clouds and the people who mill about: the sparse crowd out early on a Sunday morning. It's an idyllic scene: peaceful, normal –

And then the red butterflies flutter past, and it's all gone.


	2. 2

**bloodbath butterflies**  
2

He's hungry. He's hungry. He's hungry.

He's hungry but something feels wrong.

He doesn't know what it is though. Hunger consumes his every thought and it's not until some of it abates that he realises he's been shovelling food into his mouth. It's not until some time after that, too, that he realises what he's shovelling into his mouth.

He screams. Then stuffs the blood-soaked human meat into his mouth and tears out more.

Eventually, his eyes focus and he realises: there's a blood-splattered road and half-gorged humans and the missing parts are all churning in his stomach.

But he's still hungry hungry hungry and even though he sees, now, he still can't stop.

'Yuujin!'

He stops.


	3. 3

**bloodbath butterflies**  
3

The butterflies are an interesting conversation topic, until they're not.

Haru might be the more whimsical of the pair, but he doesn't feel ominous until he hears clothes tear. And he tries not to listen at first, because they're in a park and walking past pretty dense trees and maybe this is one of the downsides of diverse reading –

And then someone screams, and his mind jumps to a completely different track.

It's still a far cry from the reality that explodes before him.

'Pupa,' says the woman next to him – and, suddenly, it's only the two of them, amidst the bloodbath and the screaming monster. 'A monster that crossed the red butterflies and hatched.'

Butterflies…

It clicks too easily and he runs to the red pupa, screaming Yuujin's name.

He misses the woman behind him, lips upticking into a smirk.


	4. 4

**bloodbath butterflies**  
4

Haru. He hears Haru's voice, calling him. He takes a step forward, then a step back when he remembers the blood on his hands and in his mouth, and the taste of flesh on his tongue.

'Stay away!' he cries. 'I'm a monster. I –'

'You're not! You're just Yuujin!' And there's suddenly warm arms around him, and that sweet familiar smell of Haru's shampoo and Yuujin relaxes into it: into that embrace, into that familiarity –

And then there's a harsh bark of laughter breaking through and he opens his eyes to stare at a black haired woman in a top hat above him.

'He believed in you and you ate him.' There's laughter still, in her tone, 'but don't worry; we'll take care of it all.'

The words don't register immediately. He looks, instead, at his hands. Haru – Haru had been wrapped around him but he's slumped to the floor, now. 'Haru!' He shakes his shoulder. The boy rolls over –

And then Yuujin understands what the woman meant, because there are parts gorged out – too many parts – and Haru's parted lips and blank, unseeing eyes.

'You ate him,' the woman repeats. 'You're a monster, after all.'

Yes, he is a monster. Haru believed in him. But Haru was wrong.


	5. 5

**bloodbath butterflies**  
5

They take him away, and they tuck the carnage left behind into body bags. He doesn't look at Haru again. He can't. It's his fault, and even though he looks human again on the outside, the monster that hatched out of him still hums inside.

He's eaten so much – so many people – and he should feel potent grief and remorse but it's muted. And he still feels the hunger, despite the disgust, despite the despair –

The woman's right to call him a monster. A monster that's tame and docile when their stomach's full but grows hungry far too quick, and whose heart is likewise too full and too hollow at the same time.

Why why _why_? he asks. Why did this happen? Why to him? Why to them? Why did Haru have to be there with him?

Why did he have to go and knock at the Shinkai's house that early morning? Why did he have to see those red butterflies? Why was it red butterflies?

Whywhywhy is he hungry again when human and his best friend's blood and flesh churn in his gut and slime up his throat?


	6. 6

**bloodbath butterflies**  
6

Haru spirals into a nightmare. Yuujin's voice is soft and sweet in his ears but there are teeth tearing at his shoulder and it hurts.

He tears through his own lip trying to keep the screams in. After that everything spirals: red and black and yellow and he wonders if he's bled out, if he's dead.

Then there's a sharp voice in his head. 'Wow, you're awake already.'

He blinks, and slowly, the room comes into focus. A woman in a top hat, dressed from it to toes in black. And the room is black as well; there's no contrast at all and Haru wonders if he's lost his colour vision but no; his pants are a mix of their old green and dried-blood brown.

It's such a silly thing to be relived about, but he is.

'I'm awake.' Awake and confused. 'I had a nightmare, and…' Wait, he doesn't know this woman, does he? And his pants aren't supposed to have blood on them; that's from the nightmare…

'It's not a nightmare.' And the woman deposits something on his lap.

He moves to open it – that black bag – automatically, but finds he can't. His hands are bound. So are his ankles, and his waist.

The woman opens it delicately for him.

The smell hits him. Then the sight. Then the horror that all this hasn't been a nightmare after all.


	7. 7

**bloodbath butterflies**  
7

'You seem like a nice friend,' the woman says. 'A nice, foolish, friend. And just like the last nice, foolish, boy, your friend is just as foolish and infected you.'

'Infected?' Haru echoes hoarsely. He can see, now, but he still doesn't understand.

'The Pupa virus,' the woman replies. 'A fascinating thing: from a monster hatching out of its pupa, you see. And by infecting normal humans, they turn into food source: eternal food sources that regenerate whatever is eaten away and never die.' She pulls away from him, and runs a hand over her abdomen where the top's ridden up and shown a scar. 'I gave birth to food stock,' she laments. 'I wanted a monster.' And then, more frustrated. 'Yume should have come to me, not that Sachiko woman, but oh well.' She laughs. 'I shall have Yuu instead.'

'Yuu _jin_ ,' Haru corrects, because he's gleaned enough from that to understand what she wants. 'And you won't force him into anything.'

She laughs at him again. 'Oh no?' she asks. 'Though true, if he dies of hunger, it'll be no use. And you want him to live too, do you not? You can help him, you know. And I can give you something to help him too.'

He knows she's offering a deal with the devil – but what else can he do?


	8. 8

**bloodbath butterflies**  
8

'If you know what you're doing,' the woman laughs, and then he's being unchained and led down a long hall. 'But how long can you manage being eaten alive, I wonder?'

Haru shivers under her words, but tries not to think about that because what will happen to Yuujin if he can't endure it?

He barely remembers the first time. That's a comforting thought. Perhaps he'll blank out like that every time. Wake up in Yuujin's arms. Then they can sit up and talk about everything in the world, like they used to.

Like they used to… already, it's the past. Things changed so swiftly and poor Yuujin, all alone with no-one to call him by his name, to say he's not a monster after all…

'My, my,' the woman laughs, 'then what do you call a monster, I wonder?'

'You call it an infection,' Haru counters. His voice is already stronger. His strength has healed just a little slower than his body, it seems, and he's had enough time to at least pretend he's collected himself. 'He can't help it. It's the ones who are intentionally cruel and destructive that are monsters.'

The woman frowns, and for a moment Haru wonders if she's caught the underlining glib. She says nothing of it, though. 'Well, it's up to you,' she says. 'The two of you are free to go, of course, but if you want to keep the pupa quiet, you'll need two things and one you can only get from me. We're always here.'

She says that in a manner that suggest she's not afraid of letting them loose in the world at all, and she's right. It's Yuujin that will take the blow if any word of anything gets out. Things may never make it past that. If they do, she can disappear and that'll be the end of the tale.


	9. 9

**bloodbath butterflies**  
9

'We can live our normal lives outside of this?' he affirms.

He really has made a deal with the devil, but it's the only hope they have, for now.

'As far as the two of you can manage it, yes,' she replies. 'What I want is a pupa child, and he is the tool to make that happen.'

Haru understand, in that moment, that he's not necessary at all, as far as she's concerned. 'But then why..?'

'It suits my purposes too, to have the monster's favourite chewtoy in the room with him,' she shrugs. 'That way I can be sure he won't go wandering elsewhere.'

Her son, he guesses. The one that's like him. Perhaps this is her way of caring… except no. She plans to feed him to the hypothetical pupa she breeds.

'You're the monster here,' he blurts out. There's nothing else she can be.

'I'm a researcher,' she counters, 'one who's poured their blood, body and passion into their work. And you shouldn't complain. I'm doing the two of you a favour, after all. How would you explain the mess left behind? How would you explain your regenerative capabilities? But don't misunderstand your own value; I can do many things to you, things I don't have to do to my son, you see?'

How long he can last is the question. As long as he needs to is the ideal answer – but he's not one of the heroes of his fairy tales. He's just… him. Small. Weak. The supporting character – but that's what he needs to do, he realises, when they stop in front of a door. He needs to be Yuujin's support.

He can do that. He can do that.


	10. 10

**bloodbath butterflies**  
10

Haru's voice is back. 'Yuujin!'

Yuujin opens his eyes. Haru is back, in his red shirt and green pants splattered with blood but without his shoulder gorged out or his chest, and his abdomen doesn't look like its contents have been emptied out. 'Ha-Haru?'

Haru wraps his hands around him – and yes, it is Haru: warm Haru who always seems to know when he needs him.

Warm Haru that he ate alive.

He pushes him away. Or tries to. But his arms are shaking too much to manage it properly, and Haru has a vice grip around his waist.

'Haru! Stay away! What are you doing? How are you even –' He chokes on the last word, because that means admitting it alive: admitting that he'd torn flesh from his best friend until he'd bled out and died.

'They call it a virus.' Haru's crying, suddenly. 'The Pupa virus. It makes you need human flesh as food now that you've hatched, and it makes my body regenerate.' He takes a deep, noisy, breath, then continues. 'Some crazy virus we've somehow gotten infected with and that woman's trying to breed it into her children, but she's injected something into me which should take the edge off –'

Wait. Waitwaitiwait. Yuujin's brain screeches to a halt at that. He grabs Haru's shoulders and this time he manages it. Too tight, maybe, but he manages it. 'So I survive off eating you over and over? No way! I can't do that!'

Haru is still crying: pent up tears. 'You have to!'


	11. 11

**bloodbath butterflies**  
11

Haru is right, because Yuujin can't stop hunger and, eventually, it gets to the point where he can't fight it either. It gets to the point where he's deaf to Haru's screams, and the only reason he knows is because the woman with the top hat comes in at some point afterwards and rubs it in.

'It'll be better now,' she cooes to him. 'So long as you continue devouring your little friend, the drug I gave him will mean you won't need anybody else ever again. You'll be able to go back to school and hide in storage closets or empty rooms for little trysts and as long as nobody opens the door, it'll be a secret for only the two of you.'

'Why..?' Yuujin asks, and it means everything and nothing. She seems to take it as something specific, though.

'Because you've chosen him, haven't you? Just like Yume chose Hasegawa Utsutsu, and after you were so jealous too…' She traces a line on her abdomen. 'That's okay, though. I will bear replacements for the both of you, so you'll be free to love your food if that sort of thing appeals to you.'

And with those final pearls, she's gone. And neither he nor Haru see her again for a long time. Instead, there's only the man named Hotoki who claims to be Maria-sama's attendant, and that's the only reason they know her name at all.


	12. 12

**bloodbath butterflies**  
12

He tells himself not to give in.

Inevitably, he gives in.

Inevitably, he comes back to himself smeared in blood and Haru gorged out like a wild carcass, and then he has to wait until the virus inside him has knitted him back together again, before they can try and tuck it all away: the evidence, and their memories.

Somehow, Haru always manages to offer a smile as they leave whatever locked place they'd secluded themselves in. Yuujin finds he can't. The blood makes his lips too stiff. The taste of flesh inside his mouth makes him want to throw up.

He never does, though. He can even say he's getting used to the taste and used to the need, and he'd not blanking out from hunger anymore.

They've gotten more frequent, though. And how can he keep on asking Haru for this?

Except when he doesn't ask, Haru is still there and it's just that much worse.

So he has to ask, for both of their sakes.

And he also needs to ask why.


	13. 13

**bloodbath butterflies**  
13

'How can you keep doing this?' Yuujin asks him.

The irony is that he asks while unbuttoning Haru's shirt, and listens to the answer while biting down on his neck, hard enough to bleed.

'I didn't think I could,' Haru confesses… and that surprises Yuujin because Haru has handled this entire pupa mess far better than him. 'But then I thought about it. I'm not a hero. I'm not a main character. But if it's supporting you… I can do that for as long as it takes.'

'As simple as that?' He laps up the blood that spurts. Haru shudders worse than when he bites.

'You're… Yuujin,' he breathes, eyes closed. 'That's enough.'

And Haru is Haru, and maybe that's all the explanation they're missing: all the explanation they need. If it's just the two of them…

'Doesn't… hurt.' Haru's eyes are hazy, now. They've worked it out, as callous as it sounds in their own heads. Bite the neck. Bite the carotid. And then after he's bled enough to kill a normal person, eat his fill as the virus stitches him back together.

Haru mumbles something intelligible, then adds: '…feels nice.'

Yuujin licks him again, and once he's completely slipped again, he bites and tears into flesh.


	14. 14

**bloodbath butterflies**  
14

Haru wakes up to gentle touches from Yuujin: from his fingers… and from his tongue as well.

He blushes hotly. Yuujin laughs at his reaction and Haru's glad. Yuujin doesn't smile much nowadays… but he can.

They both can, like this. 'I should lick you back,' he teases, though his brain's still foggy and maybe that's why it slips out. 'See how you like it.'

'You should.' Yuujin buries himself into the other's bare chest. 'You should.'

So Haru does. Gives Yuujin's earlobe an experimental lick and the other shudders.

'You should bite too,' Yuujin suggests.

Haru pulls back. 'Where are we going with this?' He's laughing though, because Yuujin is still smiling. Some months ago, he would have been thinking something else. Blame. Masochism. But right now…

'I need you,' Yuujin says simply.

Haru does bite him, but lightly: almost too lightly, and still on the earlobe. 'I need you too.'

And this time, the rumours of them disappearing into supply closets for trysts have more truth than usual in them. But it doesn't matter. They can manage, like this. For now.

Haru takes his hands, as they leave for their next class. 'I'll study hard,' he promises. 'I'll find a cure, so you don't have to suffer any more.'

And Yuujin will hold him to that, because that's the sort of hope that can keep them both going if friendship – or love – turns out to be not enough.

But for now and however long Haru can endure it, they'll manage as they are.


End file.
